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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Tuesday, 9 March 2004) . . Page.. 925 ..

context. I do not think the ACT does environmental sustainability nearly as well as it might. The HQSD process seems to be slow and clumsy. Far too many buildings barely deliver four in the EER scale. We are only now talking about street layout design to maximise the sun, and issues of water catchment and reuse are acknowledged but never strongly addressed.

I believe, though, that the minister and the department seem to be enthusiastic about this small step in the right direction, and it is for that reason that I will stick to my amendment which is workable and which, hopefully, is going to be implemented.

MS DUNDAS (4.53): I welcome the initiative from Ms Tucker to specifically enable the government to introduce new guidelines to ensure that building materials are used more sustainably in the territory. One aspect that Ms Tucker has picked up in her amendment is the choice of materials in building, such as preventing or reducing the amount of timber used from rainforests or Australian old-growth forests.

The Democrats have long supported a ban on logging in Australian old-growth forests. Old-growth forests are essential to the survival of hollow-dependent species such as the endangered Leadbeater’s Possum and the Powerful Owl. It takes at least 250 years for mature eucalypts to develop hollows suitable for nesting by such species. Most native forests used for timber production are logged on a 100 to 150-year cycle, which does not allow enough time for the hollows to develop. However, both state and federal governments continue to let this logging occur.

Australia continues to import rainforest timber, such as Meranti timber from Malaysian rainforests, from developing nations. Rainforests do not successfully regenerate after logging and involve large losses of biodiversity. Yet these forests continue to be logged on a massive scale, often by western timber companies.

An alternative to old-growth and rainforest timber is plantation timber. Plantations can easily be established on low-value agricultural land, provided that there is sufficient rainfall. This creates a sustainable source of timber on land that previously had little ecological value.

The amendment that Ms Tucker has moved may help, even if only on a very small scale, to stop the continued loss of biodiversity. In addition, the guidelines may cover additional issues. For example, building materials continue to make up a large part of Australia’s waste and landfill. While the ACT already requires a building material disposal plan to be presented in order to gain demolition approval, there may be additional scope in the sustainability guidelines to ensure that building materials are easily recyclable and that waste is minimised.

To turn to Mrs Dunne’s amendments, I understand where Mrs Dunne is coming from in trying to broaden the scope of the sustainability guidelines, and I think her point is that there is a lot more to sustainability than simply building materials. However, there are also many other avenues available to address sustainability, such as the energy rating system for building materials and the HQSD process. I do not believe that using a building certifier is the best way to move Mrs Dunne’s ideas forward and I do not think this bill is the best way to implement them.

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